While former Colts quarterback Peyton Manning enjoys another MVP-caliber season in Denver, rookie Andrew Luck has led Indy to an 8-4 start. / Zak Keefer/Star Illustration

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Colts' Andrew Luck talks Titans, how he's holding ...: The rookie QB chats with media Wednesday about facing the Titans Sunday, and about how his body is handling workload. (Phillip B. Wilson / The Star)

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As often as I'm wrong -- as often as columnists are wrong about all sorts of subjects-- it behooves me to seize upon any and every rare opportunity to gloat.

So 12 games into this magical Colts season, I'm going to gloat, and I'm going to do it with gusto.

I was right.

And so was Jim Irsay, the Colts owner, who ultimately had to make the tough but obvious call on Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck.

I was right that the time had come to make a clean sweep of the front office. I was right that they needed to bring in a new head coach and change the culture. And I was right to pen those 15-odd columns during last year's lost season, opining that it was time to say a painful goodbye to Manning and say hello to the Next Big Thing, Andrew Luck.

I don't normally gloat, for two reasons: One, it's beneath me. Or so I thought.

Two, I'm rarely right (see: Mike Davis is the right guy for Indiana basketball).

But I'm taking off my self-imposed shackles here and happily making a fool of myself, running around Monument Circle naked with a bullhorn yelling, "I was right, Indy! Did you hear me! I was right!"

Gosh, that feels good.

It feels good because I read everything that was written on the subject last year. I read all the comments at the bottom of the columns. I read all the e-mails. I read all the blogs, some of which I didn't even know existed until someone kindly sent me a link. And let me tell you, some of them were downright vicious and personal.

I'll never forget standing near Lucas Oil Stadium one day. A car stopped nearby, a guy spit in my general direction and he screamed, "(Bleeping) Peyton hater!!"

Think about this now: How dumb would it have been to keep Manning and have Luck on the sidelines serving an internship? (For the record, you should know that in all their conversations, Luck never, not once, suggested to Irsay he would pull a John Elway-Eli Manning and refuse to come to the Colts if Manning was still on the roster. Which should tell you something else about the young man).

I started sounding the drumbeat for change back in November of last year, when the Colts lost to the Carolina Panthers and moved to 0-11. I wrote:

"If you saw Cam Newton on Sunday, you know why Peyton Manning has played his last down for the Indianapolis Colts. Because the extraordinary Carolina quarterback is a rookie this year, just as Andrew Luck will be an Indianapolis Colts rookie next year, and rookie quarterbacks of their caliber must play right away."

The reaction was angry and swift.

To his credit, Manning never took it personally, although he started semi-jokingly referring to me as "Andrew Luck's agent."

And the columns kept coming. Not because I wanted Manning gone -- why would anybody want that? -- but because it just made sense. How often does a franchise get to make the transition from one franchise quarterback to the next almost overnight?

In retrospect, I was kind of relentless about the whole thing, probably overplayed my hand. I must have written 15 or 20 columns on the subject. I got reams of letters from people telling me to quit beating a dead horse. But what the heck? It was only the biggest story in Indianapolis Colts history.

And now, the city has fallen back in love with its football team.

Shoot, the ticket office has even added a couple hundred names to its waiting list.

Make no mistake: This franchise was at a very dangerous crossroads. If Luck had somehow not worked out, if it had taken three, four years for this team to be competitive, things would have gotten ugly (especially as Manning continues to have an MVP season for a team with Super Bowl aspirations).

Roughly 13,000 season-ticket holders did not renew their tickets this offseason, and I can promise you, not all of them made that decision because of economics. This was a Peyton town. With Peyton gone, they were gone, too.

But they're coming back. The waiting list is coming back. Blackouts? They won't be an issue for years to come. This town has fallen for an entirely new cast, for Luck and Vick Ballard, for T.Y. Hilton and Jerrell Freeman.

For his part, Luck has stepped into the giant shadow and done it seamlessly. He's the perfect person for this moment, thoughtful and smart enough to say all the right things at the right times. Just as RGIII's personality fits perfectly in star-starved Washington, Luck fits like a glove in a Midwestern city that frowns on flash and self-promotion.

(A quick aside: Was anybody else getting physically ill as Jon Gruden fell all over himself in love with RGIII on Monday Night? The Washington quarterback is a wonderful player, but when he fumbled directly into the hands of a teammate, Gruden screamed "That's the magic of RGIII!!" Really? Magic? He FUMBLED).

So.

I was right.

I feel much better now.

Bob Kravitz is a columnist for The Indianapolis Star. Contact him at (317) 444-6643 or via email at bob.kravitz@indystar.com. You can also follow Bob on Twitter at @bkravitz.